Islamist planned attack on French Olympic team: intelligence chief

PARIS (Reuters) - A Brazilian Islamist militant was plotting an attack against the French delegation at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the head of a French intelligence agency has said.

General Christophe Gomart, who runs the military intelligence directorate (DRM), made the comment in May during a parliamentary commission hearing into Islamist militant attacks in France in 2015, according to a transcript of the hearing that has just been made public.

Gomart told lawmakers his service had been told by a “partner agency” about the plot. He did not give further details.

The head of Brazil’s intelligence agency, Wilson Roberto Trezza, told reporters on Wednesday his agency had not been contacted by France or any other foreign country about the alleged plot.

A spokesman for a special secretariat at Brazil’s Justice Ministry, which is spearheading security efforts for the Olympics, declined to comment.

He said Brazilian officials remained in close contact with partner countries about any possible threats to the Games, which run from Aug. 5 to Aug. 21.

Brazilian security officials, along with foreign partners, have increasingly been monitoring chatrooms and other communications among suspected sympathizers of radical groups.

They have said their biggest concern during the Olympics is not the threat of a coordinated attack by known militants, but the possibility that a lone actor or group sympathetic to militant causes could seek to target the event.

Brazil will deploy about 85,000 soldiers, police and other security personnel, more than twice the size of the security deployment during the London Olympics in 2012.

Reporting by Gerard Bon in Paris and Alonso Soto in Brasilia, Brazil; Editing by Janet Lawrence